Sainiani Boila 
Over $1 million was the collectively unearned income for the liability account of rural housing assistance in the 2020 and 2021 financial years.
This was revealed by the Ministry of Housing Permanent Secretary while presenting the Ministry’s 2020–2021 audited accounts, who says that the deposits were received from the one-third contribution from the applicants under rural housing assistance.
Lesuma says the Ministry has assisted 42 applicants in the 2019-2020 financial year and 16 applicants in 2020-2021, resulting in a reduction of the balance to $292,754 as of July 2023.
“The programme was transferred back to the Ministry of Rural and Maritime on the 5th of January and the Ministry has written to the Ministry of Finance to transfer the balance to the Ministry of Rural and Maritime on the 13th of July 2023.”
Lesuma says they are currently working with the Ministry of Finance to transfer the balance back to the Ministry responsible; however, this is taking up a lot of time.
“They have requested that we provide the acquittals for each applicant including the invoices, the delivery dockets, receipt payment vouchers and the Ministry for the Chairs info, the Ministry is in the process of gathering this and it will take us two weeks to have this process to be completed as per the request from the Ministry of Finance.”
Another loophole highlighted in the audited reports is the carried-forward balances of over $100,000 for the Operating Trust Fund Account of the Ministry.
Lesuma says most loopholes identified by the Auditor General fall in the period when housing was under the Ministry of Local Government.
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